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Title: The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner ISBN: 0-262-23222-7 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: almost great
Comment: The start of this book is excellent. Wegner begins by explaining what criteria have to be met for us to feel we have done something freely. These include: 1) a thought precedes an action (usually just before). 2) the thought always precedes the action 3) the action always follows the thought. He explains why this provides an illusion of freely chosen action. First, he gives examples of situations where people feel they are willing action, but someone else in fact, controls the action. The examples are amazing!! Then he gives many examples when people are controlling the action, but feel they are not. He finishes by concluding that free will is an emotion that allows us to keep track of our own actions and thus makes it possible for us to learn from our actions and keep track of who does what. He likens this sense of free will to a speedometer that is helping to measure a link between thought and action, but explains that the feeling of will is not itself causal.
First, I think Wegner should include in his list of criteria for us to conclude we have willed action this idea: That we cannot attribute the action to forces outside our control, including overwhelming emotions (passions, if you will) and external physical causes. He doesn't say this outright though much of the book IS devoted to explaining this idea.
Wegner agrees that thoughts can "cause" actions, but that the feeling of choosing does not. The problem I have with the book is that, at the end, he fails to stand firmly behind the conclusions that surely must follow from all he has said. We do not control our thoughts any more than our actions is the only logical conclusion. Thus our ideas of morality are based on an illusion.
We must also conclude that people's reports on their mental states are almost never accurate. Such reports of mental states thus have no place in a court of law for example.
Wegner seems to use the idea of a guilty conscience as an indication that the person knew what he was doing when he did it. I strongly disagree. He may have acted unconsciously and later realized his behavior was inconsistent with his beliefs. A guilty mind, in my view, should be a sign of a person who is less likely to act in a bad way again, not more worthy of blame. For example, sociopaths will never have a guilty mind, and are the ones most likely to repeat harmful behavior
I think we have to fall back on the position of Gilbert Ryle, the only real clues we have to a person¡¦s mental state (including our own) is behavior. By this criteria, anyone who shows behavioral signs of genuine remorse (we could be fooled by very good actors, but usually when people fake someone can see it--there will be some inconsistency in behavior) is providing clues that the person did something he did not feel was morally right and it is also an indicator that, unless they have an uncontrollable compulsion, they will be more likely to avoid the behavior in the future. Feelings of remorse, if strong, should act as a deterrent (Wegner does suggest this).
In the end Wegner is unable to give up on the idea that we WILL our actions. He devotes a book to saying this is an illusion, but ultimately he does not want to give up on will as a causal force and that was a disappointment
Rating: 4
Summary: Good, but fails near the end
Comment: I loved the way this book started. For example, the evidence that people can feel they are controlling other people's actions is fascinating. The overall theory of how we feel we are willing things is well presented, as is the idea that such a feeling is an illusion. This isn't shocking stuff to some, but to others it will be a huge revelation.
I do have complaints. For the tiny ones first (big one at the end). First, I object to calling the loss of pain and loss of memory during hypnosis examples of increased mental control. By that definition, Alzheimers patients have increased control. What one isn't aware of one isn't aware of and this hardly seems like control.
As far as not being able to avoid thinking of things, it seems to me the explanation is simpler. Words conjure images, but negative words have no images associated with them so when you say "Don't think about a bear" the only word causing an image is bear, and so you think of a bear. Trying to monitor bear thoughts will lead to bear thoughts. Also he says, if you are distracted while you are trying not to do something you will be more likely to do it. I can see that since trying not to do something (like drop a jar) requires action in an opposite direction, i.e. it requires effort. But is this true when you are trying NOT to think of something? If I tried not to think of Wegner's white bear and was then asked to recite the Gettysburg address I strongly suspect I would forget the bear. Not thinking about something, unlike not doing does not require any positive action. Distraction ought to make it easier to forget and he never distinguishes between these and acts as if what is true of behavior is true of thoughts.
But my BIG complaint is the last chapter. He suddenly claims his own theories only explain why we feel will, but he tried to minimize the impact of all this on morality and even started talking about will as a causal force again. He even seemed at times when using the word will to indicate something that wasn't necessarily conscious. This is nonsense. If will isn't conscious it isn't will.
Our thoughts have causal impact on our actions, but then what is the cause of our thoughts? Clearly we don't control these either. They are a sum of what we are, what we have experienced, the way our brains are wired together etc. As far as morality I have to believe that the only thing we can judge is individual bits of behavior. Behavior is moral or not, acceptable or not and some people have a higher propensity to engage in unacceptable behaviors than others--whatever the reasons. As a society we have to judge behavior and engage in activities to modify the behavior of others when it is unacceptable and that is what our jutsice system should attempt. If an individual's behavior remains unacceptable or cannot be modified, we have an obligation to put them where they cannot engage in the behavior.
Wegner is clearly unwilling to give up on the idea that people will their behavior and are thus responbsible in the traditional way for what they do. The idea that we can use "mens rea" a guilty mind to show a person willed their actions seems like a dubious standard to me. A person may not will their behavior but later feels guilty because they realize their behavior is in violation of their own moral code. A person totally lacking a developed moral code (a sociopath, let's say) would never exhibit a guilty mind. Are such folks les guilty? Or less dangerous?
The whole issue of whether mental states should be considered in a legal system should be abandoned as far as I can see. I believe we should judge behavior and then decide what to do with the person engaging in the behavior. What we do should be motivated by our desire to 1) modify the person's behavior and 2) protect innocents. The strategy for each individual will vary depending on their mental abilities and their behavioral history etc and we may often get it wrong.
Wegner's thesis has much bigger implications for our ideas about personal responsibility than he wants to admit and ultimately he is unwilling to really stick with his guns. That was a dissappointment.
But the book has a lot of great stuff to say and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in mind/body questions.
Rating: 3
Summary: Really underdetermined and of narrow scope.
Comment: In brief, this book doesn't make a necessary case for the illusion of freewill for several reasons. First, the evidence that the author cites could be turned on it's head and used to argue for "freewill" type action from an evolutionary perspective. Second, some studies he cites like Libets also have alternative interpretations and these studies really seem to deal more with subconscious and passive processes than active volition (see Schwartz and Begley's book called "The Mind And The Brain" for more on active volition). Third, if freewill does exist, it's compatible with modern physical theory but isn't compatible with materialism despite what compatiblists try to assert. This is an ontology relative notion so one needs to be careful. Forth, there is no privilege beyond its current political clout to the materialist ontology, in fact it is a very inadequate and incoherent position with respect to consciousness. You'll find nothing but specious arguments and obscurantism dressed up in technical language -- all being done to "save" materialism. Anyway, so much more on other ontology's and the mind needs to be fairly considered through out this work. For instance, with libertarian freewill the _action_ of choice isn't necessarily caused by antecedents. This isn't the temporal notion that you find in determinism which implies an actual infinite regress in time. In other words, there is no beginning to time, which is contrary to what most cosmologists think. These regresses are considered irrational since they lead to all sorts of absurdities. In an infinite past how would one have the time to ever get to the here and now? Of course this implies a timeless and immaterial entity prior to the beginning of time and those typically are of two kinds, abstract mathematical concepts in a Platonic realm OR minds. However, abstract mathematical concepts don't enter into causal relations but that is not the case with thinking about minds. This leaves the possibility that the universe was caused by an eternal mind-like entity which some view as God. Now, from a dualists perspective are human minds/souls likewise given absolute freedom? Many would probably say that freedom is relative since humans have freedom of choice except over God, which is after all omnipotent and the only absolutely free entity. But besides the exercise of God's will over man, humans do have freewill. Anyway much more needs to be said than what this book offers.
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